Things to do in London this weekend (2-8 March)

Anna Ziegler’s 90-minute two-hander, Evening all Afternoon, is a tremendous vehicle for two actors. It enables an absolutely storming stage debut for Erin Kellyman. She plays Delilah, the surly university-age American daughter to an unseen British father. He’s taken her back home to England, where she marinates in the grief at her mother’s death and the isolation of the Covid lockdown. And also resentment of her dad’s new wife Jennifer (Anastasia Hille). The play is built on a fascinating variation on the old Brit/Yank culture clash. Over the course of 90 minutes, Ziegler smartly deconstructs their facades.

Joo Young Won used to be head chef at the Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, his new restaurant, Calong, is cosy and simple, with food made for sharing. Chef Joo was raised in South Korea, but began his cookery career in the UK, and for a long time focused on French technique. It shows. Calong sees him cooking dishes inspired by his native cuisine in a masterful light-touch fusion fashion. A warm pumpkin and crisp pear salad is delicately dressed with gochujang, cured Chalkstream trout with perfectly tart sesame and plum soy, the fried chicken is crunchy yet silky, and a BBQ onglet is sweet and tender with a bulgogi jus. It’s one of the most exciting restaurants Stoke Newington has to offer. 

Strange, ravishing and rhapsodic, there aren’t many movies like Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, unless you can think of another historical folk musical about a nearly-vanished religious movement that turns its followers’ convulsive expressions of devotion into Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers. A cradle-to-grave portrait of Ann Lee, the founder of the Christian sect known as the Shakers, the film is, at turns, completely stunning and utterly baffling. At its most successful, though, it doesn’t just depict ecclesiastical fervour – it sweeps you up in it. In that way, the movie is really a testament to the performance of Amanda Seyfried. As Lee, she fills her large, expressive eyes with a sense of unwavering belief — appropriate for a woman who came to see herself as the reincarnation of Christ himself.

Get a glimpse of the hidden lives of queer people in midcentury New York at this intimate exhibition. Before homosexuality was legalised, Donna Gottschalk photographed the people she described as ‘brave and defiant warriors’ for daring to live openly as themselves, and take part in the emerging lesbian, trans and gay rights movements. This Photographers Gallery exhibition of her work puts her images in conversation with texts by writer Hélène Giannecchini, who is decades her junior, creating an intergenerational dialogue charting changing times. 

The twists and turns of French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe’s film are as dangerous as a mountain road. At first, the film plays as a fish-out-of-water comedy as the resolutely middle-class Luis (Sergi López) finds himself forced to ally himself to the tattooed, drug-fuelled crusties who can show him the way, ashe and his young son, Esteban, hand out fliers as they search for his daughter who is rumoured to be in the desert area they live in.The sweetness of Luis and Esteban’s relationship is matched by the makeshift family of outcasts and wanderers. Much will depend on how far you’re willing to go with the wild swings the film takes in its second half, but if you’re down for a trip, Sirat is startlingly original, jarringly hilarious and deeply disturbing.

The Young V&A’s Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends is nominally aimed at kids aged eight to 14, but there’s plenty for adults too. It’s a nice mix of nostalgic paraphernalia that will appeal to adults, and hands-on, how-to-make-your-own stop-motion film stuff that youngsters will get a kick out of. The original models are fascinating, charming and surprisingly impressive. From the gargantuan pirate ship from Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! to a series of versions of Wallace & Gromit’s Were-Rabbit that gradually strip it down to its robot skeleton. It’s just really cool – and maybe a little moving. 

The National Portrait Gallery has been on a solid run in recent years, particularly when it comes to exhibitions on contemporary portraiture – we loved its exhibitions on The Face and Jenny Saville last year – so we have high hopes for this, the biggest exhibition to be shown in the UK to date from the iconic photographer Catherine Opie. Curated in collaboration with the artist, the exhibition will span the Ohio-born artist’s three-decade career, exploring representations of home, family, identity, politics and power structures through Opie’s vivid and colourful portrait photographs. Works featured in the exhibition will span her first major work, Being and Having (1991), her portraits of LGBTQ+ friends inspired by court painter Hans Holbein, to her Baroque-like portraits of artists.

Bird Grove is about the young Mary Ann Evans – aka future literary titan George Eliot, and her father, Owen Teale’s Robert Evans. Teale’s Robert is a gruff middle-class widower who is paying a small fortune for the titular abode in fashionable 1840s Coventry, essentially in an effort to engage with society and bag his beloved daughter a suitable husband. Matters between them become tested when Mary Ann works up the courage to tell her dad that she no longer wants to go to church as she no longer believes. Finally, the pair really do clash. But Campbell’s writing is careful and empathetic. It’s an enjoyable, sensitive and heartfelt play, given a trundling but very serviceable period production by director Anna Ledwich. Fans of stately period dramas with a feminist twinkle won’t go away disappointed. 

The Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens is taking a voyage to China this February, courtesy of the latest annual mind-bending orchid display that takes over the iconic glasshouse each year. As ever, the exotic display will celebrate the natural beauty and biodiversity of its subject country: China is home to thousands of varieties of orchid, plus vast amounts of other flora and fauna besides. Look out for sculptures of dragons and Chinese lanterns, as well as intricately woven plant installations. There’ll also be ticketed after-hours events with live Chinese music, food, cocktails and dance performances. 

Scottish Ballet’s award-winning production about the complex relationship between Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I comes to Sadler’s Wells. Created by Scottish Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence  Sophie Laplane and James Bonas , Mary, Queen of Scots puts a modern streak in classical ballet with its stark set and costumes inspired by haute couture and punk. Its original score is performed live by the Scottish Ballet Orchestra.

The Tate Modern kicks off its 2026 programme with a retrospective tracing the 40-year career of Croydon’s finest artistic export, Tracey Emin. Over 90 pieces will be exibited in the landmark exhibition, including some of the Young British Artist’s most defining works, from her famous neons and her controversial Turner Prize-nominated installation My Bed, to painting, video, textiles and never-before-exibited sculptures. Expect plenty of raw, confessional art exploring love, trauma and the female body.

British painter Rose Wylie takes on films, celebrities and ancient civilisations in her work. Like a punkier, more feminist Philip Guston, the Kent-based artist often focuses on women, depicting figures from Elizabeth I to Nicole Kidman in exuberant, colourful, bold lines. She’s also a later-in-life success story, having taken up painting in her fifties, and only achieving critical success only arrived in her late seventies. All those decades of working away have paid off, though, as The Royal Academy of Arts will bring the largest collection of the 92-year-old’s work to date to the capital this February, showcasing her adventurous, socially observant paintings to a wider audience.

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After a five-year-long world tour, this blockbuster exhibition on the ancient Egyptians is finally arriving in London. Ramses and the Pharaoh’s Gold will display 180 priceless treasures on loan from the Supreme Council of Antiquities, of which the pinnacle is the coffin of Ramses II, giving Londoners the chance to see an original sarcophagus here in the Big Smoke. Other gems on show will include gold masks,  silver coffins, animal mummies, amulets, jewellery and colossal sculptures. Although superficially sounding quite similar to the recent Tutankhamun immersive exhibition, this one seems a lot more based around Ancient artefacts, with none of the fanciful CGI frippery that’s come into fashion in the world of international touring exhibitions the last couple of years.

Everyone knew there was more to the late Chadwick Boseman than Black Panther, but even so it was somewhat startling when Deep Azure – a play he wrote in 2005 – popped up on the winter programming schedule of Shakespeare’s Globe. But, the fit with the Globe makes sense. Boseman’s play is not only written in street poetry-esque rhyming verse, but it features a ghost (kind of), a revenge plot and even actually quoted passages from Hamlet. It’s set in the aftermath of the death of Deep (Jayden Elijah), the free-spirited lover to Selina Jones’ intense Azure. He was killed by a cop, and she’s now stuck in a spiral of despair, compounded by her own underlying body image issues. It’s far more than a curio by a famous guy – it’s a work of powerful poetry. 

Broadwick Soho landed in 2023 with serious flair and has been delivering a hit of West End glamour ever since. Inside the hotel, Dear Jackie is its seductive Italian dining room, all Murano glow, red silk walls and plush booths made for lingering. Expect refined Italian comfort food, standout pasta and classic cocktails from Bar Jackie to set the mood.

Our exclusive Time Out offer saves you 30% (now £33), for three courses and a cocktail worth up to £14. It’s an indulgent pre-theatre treat or the kind of Soho dinner that could easily turn into a late night.

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This musical adaptation of Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – a 2012 novel that was made into a film a couple of years back – has a fair few unlikely moments of its own, in a good way. Katy Rudd’s production of this yarn about a taciturn man in his sixties having what I think is fair to describe as an elaborate mental breakdown has supernatural elements and uses rustic folk songs written by indie folkster Passenger. It’s a story about life and the scars we pick up on the way. There’s a wildness and darkness bubbling beneath the surface that means The Unlikely Pilgrimage packs a surprising punch.

Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined beyond belief, through cutting-edge technology. Situated in Marble Arch, Frameless plays host to four unique galleries with hypnotic visuals and a dazzling score. Enjoy 90 minutes of surreal artwork from Bosch, Dalí and more for just £23.60!

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A revival of William Nicholson’s 1989 play, Shadowlands, stars Hugh Bonneville as the devoutly Christian Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis, and traces his real-life romance with the younger American poet Joy Davidman. And it’s largely delightful, not an odd couple meet cute, but a story about a genuine, real connection between two somewhat lost souls. It’s high-class MOR, a chaste romantic fantasy that plays great with the Bonneville stans. 

Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy is a truly extraordinary revival. Anthony Lau’s production is the first Rattigan we’ve seen that throws off the shackles of naturalism. Here, Rattigan joins Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen et al in being deemed a playwright whose work can be given a batshit staging and still stand tall. Staged in the round, designer Georgia Lowe’s distinctly Brechtian, wilfully anachronistic set, it liberates star Ben Daniels from period constraints, freeing him up to deliver what is easily the best stage performance of the year to date. He plays Gregor Antonescu, a Machiavellian Romanian-born financier who on the cusp of triggering a fresh financial crash. It’s an extraordinary couple of hours of theatre, the performance of the year wrapped up in a wild production that tears up everything we thought we knew about how to stage good old Terence Rattigan.

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota will bring her mesmirising web-like installation to the Hayward in her first major London solo show. Floor-to-ceiling woven artworks will take over the gallery, engulfing ordinary objects – such as shoes, keys, beds, chairs and dresses – within the huge structures. These will be accompanied by new large-scale sculptures, drawings, early performance videos and photographs. 

This year’s New Contemporaries exhibition, a showcase of 26 of the UK’s finest emerging artists, includes themes of – and you may want to take a breath here – dystopian futures, the climate crisis, industrialisation, gentrification, displacement, critical approaches to systems of power, digital technologies, mourning, remembrance, and loss. Among others!

Veteran director Richard Eyre’s new adaptation of August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death brings another bunch of weighty actors to perform a thoughtful revival of a classic drama in The Orange Tree Theatre’s intimate in-the-round space. Alice (Lisa Dillon) and Edgar (Will Keen) have been trapped together for nearly 25 years on a military outpost off the coast of Sweden. They loathe everyone on the island, especially each other. Then one stormy night, a potential bombshell arrives in the form of Kurt (Geoffrey Streatfeild). Will he rescue Alice? Team up with Edgar? Or merely be the enabler for yet more sadistic cat-and-mouse games? Eyre’s sweary, funny adaptation of Strindberg’s play makes the most of the biting humour. It’s bitterly funny but also narrow and claustrophobic.

Somerset House’s next outdoor large-scale comission will be created by German-Scottish artist and researcher Dana-Fiona Armour. Serpentine Currents will feature large-scale serpentine structures derived from 3D scans of endangered sea snake specimens, illuminated by light patterns triggered by oceanographic data, addressing the looming threat of marine ecosystem collapse. Cheerful stuff!

Sweetmeats, from writer Karim Khan and director Natasha Kathi-Chandra, offers a love story about the older generation – slow-burning and cocooned in domestic simplicity. Two widowers, Hema (Shobu Kapoor) and Liaquat (Rehan Sheikh), meet at a Type 2 diabetes management course. It’s hardly a classic meet-cute, but it’s a plausible one. As with most romances, they begin by bickering. It has something resonant to say about forgotten generations and their desires, about the cultural specificities that connect and nourish, and about intergenerational families at a stage of life we rarely see onstage. It’s not glamorous, but it’s very sweet.

The NPG will be the UK’s first museum to stage an exhibition focussing on Lucain Freud’s works on paper, including some artworks seen on display for the first time. Focussing on Freud’s mastery of drawing in all forms, Drawing into Painting will look at the artist’s lifelong preoccupation with the human face and figure, from the 1930s to the early 21st century.

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece is a work of burning, ravenous intelligence, and almost universally acknowledged as his best work. It’s a play about the unpredictability of humanity, how we’re defined by our transience, our sex drives, and our desire to understand. Carrie Cracknell’s revival is not an attempt to radically reconfigure Arcadia. She and her team - notably designer Alex Eales - have leaned nicely into the Old Vic’s current in-the-round configuration with a revolving circular stage that neatly encapsulates the underlying sense of cosmic wonder that underpins it all. Arcadia is a perfect play, which means there’s a lot less wiggle room for a director to impose themselves. It’s also unforgiving to actors. Cracknell gives it a nice air of intimacy and avoids having her cast speechify Stoppard’s ornate prose.

Miriam Battye’s comedy The Virgins is set in an unremarkable house, with a corridor in the middle. With Joel (Ragevan Vasan), his mate Mel (Alec Boaden), and his teenage sister Chloe (Anushka Chakravarti) and her friends Jess (Alla Bruccoleri) and Phoebe (Molly Hewitt-Richards), who are getting ready for a big night out as it opens. The boys are not the focus here. The girls – clever, wordy, neurotic, virgins – are painstakingly crafting a plan to go out and get… snogged. They are smart and irrational, sweet and maddening as they try to naively micromanage their journey to adulthood. It’s a fine play: funny, concise, stacked with rising talent. And very accessible: Battye has written a lot for TV and it shows, in a good way. 

Between 1885 and 1890, OG Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat spent five summers observing the port towns along the northern coast of France, capturing impressive seascapes, regattas and other oceanic activities. Twenty three of these paintings, oil sketches and drawings are to be showcased at the Courtauld from February next year, offering a nautical insight into this elusive French artist. The exhibition will borrow works from world-class galleries including MOMA and the Musée d’Orsay, making it even more worth the peek.

The landmark exhibition at the British Museum will trace the evolution of the Japanese warrior class over the past 1,000 years, exploring how their image came to be what it is today. From the medieval period to the present day, this major exhibit will bring together 280 objects to illustrate how the Samurai came to be known as armour-clad warriors, fighting epic duels, and following a strict code of honour. But it will also explore how ideas of Samurai have been fabricated, idealised and adapted, dispelling the myths and revealing their true history.